Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Recession pushing millions into poverty says the World Bank

The World Bank released revised economic indicators ahead of the G-20 meetings in London. They say that in 2009 the world's economy will grow by 1.7 percent, but if you removed China and India from the world there would be no growth at all.

The stats and figures related to poverty are included in this snippet that comes from AFP via the Google News.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the recession was expected to trap 53 million more people in poverty this year, defined as subsistence living on less than 1.25 dollars a day."This comes after soaring food and fuel prices of recent years, which pushed 130 to 155 million people into extreme poverty, many of whom have still not recovered," Zoellick said in a speech in London.

Poor people in developing countries have little buffer to protect them against the effects of the crisis.

"In London, Washington, and Paris people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food," he said.

Zoellick called on the Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries and the European Union, whose leaders are holding a crisis meeting in London Thursday, to support measures to help developing countries, such as the bank's appeal to developed countries to donate 0.7 percent of their stimulus spending to its Vulnerability Fund.

"Unlike economic crises in the past sixty years, this is a global crisis. It will require a global solution," the former US trade envoy said.

"These events could next become a social and human crisis, with political implications," he added.